Effects of low-frequency incident turbulence on wind pressure and flow of building wall-mounted photovoltaic panels

The building wall-mounted photovoltaic (WPV) panels are susceptible to wind. For these small-sized structures, it is challenging to adequately generate low-frequency incident turbulence in a typical boundary-layer wind tunnel. To investigate the effects of low-frequency incident turbulence on wind pressure and flow of building WPV panels, the large eddy simulations were conducted with partial-turbulence simulations that replicate wind tunnel conditions and full-turbulence simulations that reproduce natural atmospheric boundary-layer wind conditions. Comparisons of the mean, fluctuating, and peak net pressures on WPV panels with three common geometric scales (1/30, 1/60, 1/90) from the partial-turbulence and full-turbulence simulations revealed that the insufficient low-frequency incident turbulence presented a minor influence on the pressure distribution characteristics of the WPV panels but caused a significant reduction in the overall net pressure magnitude, particularly in the peak net pressure. Further analysis of wind flow characteristics indicated that variations in the secondary separated shear layer from the edge of the WPV panels were the primary drivers of this pressure reduction.